New Neutrality: Mumbo Jumbo?
October 26th, 2007
|
| Share |
Now here’s a commercial that’s just insulting to the intellegence of viewers. I saw it a while back and almost could not believe how blatantly it pushes propaganda from the cable and phone companies. It claims that legislation for Net Neutrality is “Mumbo Jumbo” and doesn’t even attempt to explain what it is, but then again, isn’t that the point? I wonder if anyone would actually call their congressman/congresswoman and ask for them not to support the concept without even looking into it further.
Net Neutrality is a critical issue, because much as I love a free market, it can only work if certain regulations are enforced to ensure that anti-competitive practices are not used to prevent consumers from having access to alternatives and to control and restrict choice. And while the companies have the right to run such an add, I find it insulting.
For those who do not know, Net Neutrality would require your ISP (cable, phone company or otherwise) to provide access to the internet as a whole without restrictions or favoring certain sites or services. In other words, without net neutrality your ISP can slow or block content and promote other content at will. So if your phone company provides you with DSL they could restrict you from certain VOIP providers, thus forcing you to use their phone service. Or your cable company could slow down or even block you from viewing something like directv.com or dishnetwork.com or they could give extra bandwidth to certain sites and less to others, forcing you to buy things from where they want. Net neutrality, quite simply, means that if they sell you internet access, they must give you access to the internet: the internet as a whole and without favoritism or restriction.Does that sound like a scam? Or mumbo jumbo?
This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Culture, Obfuscation, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
February 16th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
The Internet Freedom Preservation Act (HR 5353) is a new bill with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives that protects net-neutrality. So, Call/Email/Write your congress-people asking for support of this bill!
Quote Comment